Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to NHS England's publication entitled 2023/24 priorities and operational planning guidance, whether her Department has provided further (a) guidance and (b) other support to relevant Integrated Care Boards to help support the delivery of a self-referral patient pathway for audiology services.

NHS England conducted a national Integrated Care Board (ICB) service level self-assessment in September 2023 which reported 88 age related hearing loss audiology services offering Self-Referral routes into existing audiology pathways in England.

To raise awareness of self-referral into audiology services, NHS England is adding information on the relevant condition specific pages on the NHS.UK website. ICBs are responsible for ensuring patients have the information they need to make decisions about their care including if they have the option to self-refer to locally commissioned services.

NHS England has supported ICBs to introduce self-referral routes via a range of national measures including web based collaborative sharing and learning spaces where examples, case studies and answers to frequently asked questions are shared and ICBs can discuss implementation with other areas. NHS England is also delivering a series of national Communities of Practice webinars.